Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to an apparatus and method for universal demosaicing of single-plane, color image data produced by a digital image sensor overlaid with a Color Filter Array (CFA) for producing a color image.
Description of the Related Art
A demosaicing (also de-mosaicing, demosaicking, or debayering) algorithm is a digital image process used to reconstruct a color image from output from an image sensor overlaid with a CFA. The demosaic process may also be known as CFA interpolation or color reconstruction. Most modern digital cameras acquire images using a single image sensor overlaid with a CFA, so demosaicing may be part of the processing pipeline required to render these images into a viewable format. To capture color images, photo sensitive elements (or sensor elements) of the image sensor may be arranged in an array and detect wavelengths of light associated with different colors. For example, a sensor element may be configured to detect a first, a second, and a third color (e.g., red, green and blue ranges of wavelengths). To accomplish this, each sensor element may be covered with a single color filter (e.g., a red, green or blue filter). Individual color filters may be arranged into a pattern to form a CFA over an array of sensor elements such that each individual filter in the CFA is aligned with one individual sensor element in the array. Accordingly, each sensor element in the array may detect the single color of light corresponding to the filter aligned with it.
The Bayer pattern has typically been viewed as the industry standard, where the array portion consists of rows of alternating red and green color filters and alternating blue and green color filters. Usually, each color filter corresponds to one sensor element in an underlying sensor element array.